


Iris

by honeycoffin



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Minor Body Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 14:58:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11625969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeycoffin/pseuds/honeycoffin
Summary: The sweetness in these words makes Kei feel like he’s swallowing fire with no experience. In a freak show of one. The kerosene drips unceremoniously down his throat and suddenly, he is burnt.





	Iris

**Author's Note:**

> I hope I'm doing this right because this is the first time I'm posting anything.  
> This fic is set to the song Iris by The Goo Goo Dolls.
> 
> I'm pretty new to writing and actually finishing anything.  
> I hope everyone likes it because it was a lot of fun to write at 3 am.  
> Thank you to all the lovely beta readers I had, I hope I took your advice properly.
> 
> **Minor body horror tagged for mentions of insects inside the body and blood/wounds.  
> No one is actually injured. My writing is just kind of gross and flowery.**

_And I’d give up forever to touch you_  
_‘Cause I know that you feel me somehow_  
_You’re the closest to heaven that I’ll ever be_  
_And I don’t want to go home right now._  
_And all I can taste is this moment._  
_And all I can breathe is your life._

 

When he looks at him, his throat closes up and wasps burrow into his diaphragm. And when Kei really looks, he just can’t look away. Maybe to some other living soul, Tadashi might just be another face in the crowd. But Kei’s cozy spot in purgatory pleads for forgiveness. Forgiveness of everything, right down to his sorry existence. Because past his cold exterior, there is a bloody open chest wound in need of a 3 sided bandage; Just one corner open to let air escape his bruising lungs.

Purgatory, Kei thinks, is the finite place for everyone when they die. Tadashi, on the other hand, thinks heaven sounds pretty. Puffy clouds on the soles of your worn out feet from so many years walking and running and pacing on solid ground. Kei has sworn to himself that if heaven is real, he’ll make sure Tadashi gets there safely. Tadashi swears he’ll bring Kei with him.

But if they’re really counting on the afterlife while they’re still so young, Kei would sacrifice all of it for even the most fleeting of touches on bare freckled skin. Willingly, without hesitation. 

The looks they share when they’re lying face to face on Kei’s bed, dark and peaceful, makes Kei believe (or hope) the feeling is mutual. The space in between their living, breathing bodies echoes in Kei’s mind like plates being broken against thick, marble counter tops. Amongst the noise, he doesn’t want to be anywhere else.

The noises never cease. Not through deep, even breathing and the ghost of an exhale on his skin. It’s so deafening, it lulls his eyes shut.

Moments like these come and he lets them. Kei allows the infinite opportunities he’s presented with to fall through the spaces in the hands he can’t seem to grasp with. What holds him back, he thinks, is the fear of rejection. But also, the fear of feeling too much.

Because when someone has felt so little for so long about most everything, and one person comes in and changes all of it, it really fucks a person up.

Iron in a dry mouth, salt in an deep wound.

Like water in gasping lungs, fighting for life but silently hoping for death.

And when he wakes up, Kei is alone. Cold sweat runs down his skin and provokes shivers that run marathons down his spinal cord. He feels the wasps again, and they multiply rapidly into his stomach lining and threaten to eat him alive if he doesn’t do something. What that “something” is though, is the million dollar question.

Kei reaches under his pillow and his hands meet his phone. The light is blinding in the dark, but he squints enough so his pupils dilate to let in such a stream of light. Rod vision to cone vision, he thinks, and immediately shuffles away his useless facts to a pile in the bottom of his mind. Which is located in the occipital lobe. Muscle memory guides his hand to his glasses that sit neatly folded on his nightstand, and when they reach his face he’s already met with a text from the boy that puts his purgatory to shame.

**From: Tadashi**  
**03:56 am;**  
**“I had a dream that you were a mermaid. I guess a merman, and you tried to sing to me but your voice was awful and you got offended that I laughed.”**

How can something so silly make everything so hard? Kei can’t blame the boy for being goofy, but sometimes he wishes he could. The sweetness in those words makes Kei feel like he’s swallowing fire with no experience. In a freak show of one. The kerosene drips unceremoniously down his throat and suddenly, he is burnt. He chokes, and he heaves, but the fire engulfs him and sinks to his feet just as fast as his heart does.

“Tsukki?”

But just as suddenly, his skin meets icy water and all the pain is gone.

He hadn’t even notice he pressed call.

“Oh. Yamaguchi. I must’ve hit call.” He tries to level his voice but the feelings seep through, thick like honey and heavy with want.

“Tsukki whats wrong? Did you have a bad dream?” He feels bad for worrying his whatever-the-fuck he was to Kei nowadays; Didn’t feel right to call it “love” but “best friend” just wasn’t enough. His silence answers all of Tadashi’s worries, and he speaks up again. “I’m coming over, okay Tsukki? I’ll be there in, like, 10 minutes, I just gotta put pants on first.”

The thought of seeing freckled legs unclothed makes a hole in Kei’s throat. And it stitches it back up in the following second. 

“Okay.” He hangs up. He _always_ hangs up. Tadashi _always_ smirks and says Kei is “too cool” for goodbyes, but truthfully “goodbye” is the one word he never wants to say to him.

 

_And sooner or later it’s over._  
_I just don’t wanna miss you tonight._  
_And I don’t want the world to see me_  
_‘Cause I don’t think that they would understand._  
_When everything’s made to be broken_  
_I just want you to know who I am._

 

A pebble thrown at his window wakes him from his trance and wordlessly he heads for the back door. The cool winter air hits his face and he shivers. Tadashi steps cautiously through the yard, right through the threshold. They tiptoe without a sound up the stairs and into Kei’s room and without hesitation, a single freckled hand catches Kei’s sweater. A wordless way of saying “turn around and look at me.” So, he does. And boy, is he met with the sight of his life. Big brown eyes full of emotion meet his, and for a second he forgets what colour his own eyes are.

“Ts-- Kei. What’s wrong.” Oh god, he’s so done for. Using his name is the only way Kei knows Tadashi is being serious. Kei lets out a breath he knew he holding and brought a cold hand up to rest upon a tanned cheek. Tadashi glances toward the hand on his skin and bounces back to Kei.

“Its nothing. It was just a dream. You don’t have to look at me that way.” His scolds were halfhearted and Tadashi saw right through them. As expected.

What he was not expecting, was for Tadashi to pry the hand from his face and take it in his own. Kei is lead to his bed, the covers being brushed away by the other boy’s free hand and he feels like eyes roll on their own. ‘Yeah, yeah.’ he thinks as he slides under a sea of blankets and scoots toward the wall. Kei knows he’ll be followed by the same body that breaks his heart and soothes it at the same time. They’re face to face and Kei watches Tadashi fish his phone out of his hoodie pocket and starts typing furiously. 

“Hi, we’ve never met, but I’m Tadashi and I’m here to decode your brain. Okay, start from the beginning.” Hopeless. This boy.

Kei heaves a sigh and knows it’s best to not fight the current.

“Okay. I had a chest wound.”

As Tadashi types, Kei’s gaze sticks to the point just over his shoulder. It’s too raw to look the person you have some type of feelings for in the eyes when discussing a dream you pretend you have no idea of the meaning. When you really actually do.

“Ah, this website says a wound is a sign of torture. Uhh I guess it being on your chest, your… heart is tortured. Tsukki, what’s torturing your heart?” Kei hears the uncertainty in the word “heart” and he almost laughs.

For a split second, he almost says “you.”

Actually he does say “you.” And he saves it.

“You.. know. Um. Life? Fuck if I know.”

The sound that emits from freckle boy’s mouth is dramatic.

“Uggghhh, okay, next!”

“I was burning alive.”  
Out of the corner of his eye, because he sure as hell isn’t looking at him directly, Tadashi frowns.

“Tsukki what the fuck did you eat before bed?”  
What an amusing response, Tadashi. Very unpredictable. 0/10.

“Nothing. Shut up and tell me what it means.”  
What comes next is probably shocking to Tadashi, but not to Kei. When it reaches his ears, he can’t deny the sense it makes to him.

“Burning alive symbolizes an intense emotion or sexual desire. Tsukki? Having an intense emotion?”

He means to scoff, but he laughs instead. A short, airy laugh that he knows Tadashi can feel fan across his nose. “Didn’t you say we haven’t met before? How do you know I’m actually a robot then?”

The pout this boy can make. Holy shit Kei is so done for. Game over.  
“Fine. I’m also a robot and I hacked into your mainframe and I’ve downloaded your information. That’s how.” Though he knows Tadashi isn’t really a robot, and neither is he, Kei feels his face heat up slightly. That scenario would mean Tadashi knows about his nasty, icky feelings. For him. And how his heartbeat picks up when their eyes meet. How at night, when he’s alone, his hand travels down his skin and he sweats, and arches, and thinks and dreams of skin-stars and stray hair that can’t stay in place. And if that were to happen, then maybe he wouldn’t have to long to touch him. Or maybe Tadashi would realize how vile those thoughts are, and would exit Kei’s life, stage left, and he wouldn’t have to worry anymore. Yet he still would.

“If so, what am I thinking right now?”

He feels a warm hand sliding against his chin and guiding his face down to meet those brown eyes that hurt him so good.

It renders him speechless.

The hand leaves and an invisible scar takes its place. His face feels brand new after, as if the touch took off dead skin.

Their gaze is broken when the door across the hall slams shut. Kei clears his throat and Tadashi checks his phone. “Shit! Is it really 5 am? My mom’s gonna be so mad if she knows I snuck out through my window.” 

Stay. Don’t go. I need you. Those words are all stuck in his throat. Too big to fit past his tonsils. He looks at Tadashi and nods. “You can go.”

Unexpected Tadashi move of the night number two: Kei feels fingers slipping between his and looks down. Their hands are clasped so lightly. Kei thinks Tadashi is giving him an out, in case this was too much. But really, it wasn’t enough, and he squeezes. He flexes his fingers back and forth, brushes his thumb on the side of a palm, and stills. He can feel Tadashi’s eyes on him, and they bore almost as intensely as the stomach wasps, but he can’t force himself to look.

“I’ll call you when I’m up, okay? It’s the weekend. I’ll be back tomorrow if you want me to be.”

Kei nods and releases his hold on the others’ hand. The blood rushes, as if it were a hoard of moths chasing a light.

Kei closes his eyes when he feels the bed move. The mattress dips, expands, and it’s only him now. Only Kei’s body lies there and expects nothing more, but a hand brushing through his unruly blond hair makes him flinch. As soon as it started, it was over, and he hears the door open softly and shut just the same. The footsteps get lighter and then it ends. The way Tadashi can still surprise Kei is a mystery yet to be solved. 

 

_And you can’t fight the tears that ain’t coming_  
_Or the moment of truth in your lies._  
_When everything feels like the movies_  
_Yeah, you bleed just to know you’re alive._

 

Kei knows he could look out the window, move the blinds just a crack and see the source of his issues wandering through the grass, but he doesn’t.

He can’t.

The blinds are drawn down and the curtains closed because to have them open means someone could see him, even at 5 am when the world is most somber. But the thought of someone seeing through the cracks in his skin scares him and he folds in on himself. A silent vow to keep the window shut.

Walls are meant to be broken. Kei puts his up so methodically, meticulously, to ward of the inevitability of their destruction. When he met Tadashi, he felt a crack in his chest. The smallest, hairline sliver. He knew it was bound to continue. But for once, to show how real he could feel, to break the dam he crafted so carefully with a sledgehammer and scream and cry and speak every lingering through into fruition.

Vulnerability was not a good look on Kei. So he lies in a mess of duvets and pillows and pushes his hands under his glasses to rub harshly at his eyes. He squeezes the bridge of his nose and inhales deeply.

Kei doesn’t remember the last time he cried. But going through the motions help relieve the aching pressure behind his eyes and he waits. He soothes it out forcefully. He returns his glasses to his nightstand and rolls back onto his side. His hand reaches out to trails his fingertips along the sheets where a silly boy once lied and he curses when the finds them to be cold.

Maybe it’s better like this.

It isn’t.

And in this moment, Kei really is alive. The bandages on his chest fall off and the blood drips down his torso. His breath catches and he realizes something. He doesn’t want purgatory. He doesn’t want a grayscale-forever that could separate him from a heavenly soul like Tadashi.

He wants the clouds under his restless feet. He wants the happy ending. He needs to see the boy who smiles like the sun and has a face full of stars and reminds him of the fact that he isn’t a robot. That he’s flesh and blood, that his heart beats and his insides aren’t just a home for menacing insects to tear him in half. He wants the glory. 

He shoves his hand through up his sweater and feels dry skin beneath. The hole is still there, but the blood is absent. His fingers dip into the hole and it hurts. Maybe its fixable.

He deems it worthy of fixing.

No one could possibly know anything past the exterior he’s kept up for as long as Kei can remember. He finds solace in the way that only one person could know the depth of his entire being. Kei listens to music to avoid the small talk and banter of those around him. He likes being regarded as untouchable, what with the way he’s quick to bite and sink his teeth in and lick at the indents left behind. But for once, he yearns for a pair of tanned hands to reach into the hole and pull sutures through his skin and painfully sew him up. To keep him alive and as close to heaven as he could ever be.

His legs can’t swing over his bed fast enough, in the same way he can’t tie his laces fast enough. In an instant he’s tumbling down stairs and into the kitchen. He mother shoots Kei a startled look and he cuts her off with a rushed “I’ll be back, I have my phone, I’m just going to Yamaguchi’s.”

He’s running and fighting back against the cold that seeps through the pores on his warm skin but his mind is racing at a hundred miles an hour he doesn’t even notice he’s not wearing a jacket over his thin sweater.

It’s only as he reaches a light yellow door does Kei shiver and breathe, heavy pants and wheezes painting the sunrise a foggy white. He walks through the grass and knocks on a window. He’s been there so many times, he knows exactly which pane of glass separates him from his salvation.

The curtains are pushed back and in a matter of seconds the widow is slid open. Kei reaches in and his cold hands meet warm cheeks and he can’t stop himself from hauling that face in so close to his that their noses touch.

“Tsukki?” He knows hes pretty much pulled the boy half way out the window and its highly uncomfortable to bend down so low, but he rests his forehead against Tadashi’s and speaks the one truth he could never hide, not even from himself.

“I just want you to know who I am.”

Before he can think straight, Kei presses his lips against Tadashi’s and he feels a gasp between them. Kei moves his head and Tadashi follows, slotting their mouths together just right and pressing back, as if to ask “then who are you?” But Tadashi knows he has to explicitly ask, with words, if he wants a reply. Kei pulls back and wipes his mouth with his sweater sleeve and Tadashi speaks after his breathing is leveled.

“And who are you?”

“I’m yours. If you want me”

“I do.”


End file.
